Oprah goes classic: A good idea?

Move over, Dickens and Melville, and give some new kids a chance

January 08, 2011|By Julia Keller | CULTURAL CRITIC

Oprah Winfrey has spoken. Her latest pick for her book club — and "book club" is a misleadingly humble phrase for the most important cultural force on behalf of the ubiquity of serious reading since the invention of the paperback — are two novels by Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859) and "Great Expectations" (1861).

Fine, fine. Who's going to argue against the selection of anything by Dickens? I prefer "David Copperfield" (1850), but that's probably because my mother read that one aloud to me and my sisters when were wee things, and I can still recall the tiny lightning bolt of excitement that raced up my spine when I heard the magical repetition of the words "Barkis is willin'," a sentiment that, in the hands of a master storyteller such as Dickens, encapsulates all the romance in the world.

I don't mind that Oprah sometimes picks classic novels by dead authors for her wonderful club. Leo Tolstoy, John Steinbeck and Carson McCullers are among the posthumous recipients of her blessing, and who would dispute the value of "Anna Karenina" (1877), "East of Eden" (1952) and "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" (1940)? Not me.

Still, though, I admit to a slight disappointment this time around at the revelations of the Dickens picks. Because classic novels are easy. They're pre-approved. They're the undisputed champs. They've endured the proverbial test of time. They've been analyzed and lionized. Sanitized for our protection.

A contemporary novel, however, is a risk. It's a crapshoot. We're still busy arguing about it. Oprah's last pick was Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" (2010), a novel so wildly praised and little scrutinized, a novel that inspired such fanatical devotion based on so little actual achievement that it ought to run for president. I've been getting into fistfights about "Freedom" — metaphorically, of course, but my rhetoric packs a mean left hook — since the day it was published, and there's nothing more exhilarating than a good literary brouhaha. "Freedom" has its moments, but it's far too long-winded, and the persistent snarky tone finally becomes tiresome.

Most of the world disagrees with me about "Freedom." And that's the point. A contemporary novel is still up for grabs, argument-wise. It's still fluid and protean. Nothing is settled yet. With a classic novel, by contrast, the very fact that it remains in the conversation long, long after its initial publication is proof of its significance. The comments portion of the post is now, in effect, closed.

My library — and yours, too, no doubt — includes classics as well as new works. And each time I embark upon a new work, I wonder if it's going to be a waste of time. Wouldn't I be better off, I catch myself musing, simply returning to the tried and true? To a book whose splendors are guaranteed?

Just last week, as I forced my way through a heavily hyped novel that will be published next month, I took a break and reached at random for something else. I ended up with a paperback copy of the 1928 novel "Point Counter Point" by Aldous Huxley, which I've never read.

Right away, I was caught up in the magnificent prose, bewitched by the richness of Huxley's insights into human foibles, by his crisply convincing descriptions of houses and people and love affairs, and by his wickedly sly sense of humor. The novel's aspirations are similar to those of "Freedom" — to define an era in terms of a few representative, comically self-conscious and tragically self-deluded characters — but contrary to Franzen's overwrought and bludgeoning style, Huxley does it with a few elegant twists of the verbal knife.

So shouldn't I skip the future "Freedoms" and stick with the precertified "Point Counter Points"?

Not on your life.

New books are always coming forward, year after year, century after century. They're poured into the giant hopper of time. Most are forgotten; most end up ground into dust, after which the fine powder is reused as material from which future books are constructed.

A few, however, do slip through. They are slapped with the label "classic," and they wind up on reading lists produced by well-meaning professors and TV talk-show hosts. They're absolutely worth our time and attention. But to add some real excitement to our lives, to give ourselves a rejuvenating jolt of danger, we should make sure we're regularly climbing out on some rickety cultural limbs. The best way to do that?

Read new fiction. Pick a book you've never heard of, a book about which the jury is still thrillingly out. Boldly go where few readers have gone before.

If it ends up being a dud — and the odds, sadly, suggest that it will be — fear not: "Great Expectations" will still be there. The author is a patient guy. When it comes to waiting for readers, Dickens is willin'.